Monday, October 7, 2013

A couple of years back I picked up one of those garden benches someone had put out at the curb, with the intention of fixing it up. The wooden slats were rotted and covered in fungus, and the fasteners had all corroded through.

My dad had a friend wanting to get rid of some wood in his garage, so on a trip to Toronto I picked it all up. It included some thick cedar tongue and groove, which Rudi and I cut down into strips to rebuild the seat.

Finally, the fasteners used were all stainless, as opposed to black painted steel, so they won't rust away over the years. I think our project should outlast a store bought bench by about a decade, or more.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Recently the baking pan of our Cuisinart bread machine finally bit the biscuit, the seal finally broken, and the pan rotted around the opening for the paddle. It would take about a week to replace, or I could replace it with a new machine, and take the existing one (with pan to arrive later) up to the cottage.

I looked online, and found the ultimate bread machine, one I had been thinking about five or six years back when we were given the Cuisinart. The Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme is pretty much state of the art, the finest bread machine made. And because we put well over 80 loaves and close to 30 batches of pizza dough a year through the Cuisinart, we figured it would be a worthwhile investment.

The Zojirush has a longer baking pan, and is the only bread machine with two paddles.

A view of the inside, with pan removed. It is actually a little smaller than the Cuisinart it replaces, but has a slightly larger pan.

Ingredients in for a three pound whole wheat loaf, in the first two minutes of kneading.

A more close up view.

And sorry, the battery on my Nikon died, so you will have to wait for pictures of a completed loaf of bread! We have had it just under three weeks now, and it has produced seven perfect loaves of bread, and one batch of pizza dough.

A Sample Aggregate Count Of The Number Of People With Nothing Better To Do!

ALL ABOUT THIS BLOG

Our adventures living in an historic Victorian era Italianate home. Not so much a family blog, but more a series of anecdotes and stories about our nice little (well not really little) house, and our relation to it. If you ever enjoyed "This Olde House", or have an opinion on "Holmes on Homes", and can tolerate my sense of humour, visit as often as you like!